Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century

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"...an intricately detailed and compelling look into one of today’s most successful working directors."~Script Magazine

THE DARK KNIGHT, INCEPTION, BATMAN BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, MEMENTO and THE PRESTIGE: six blockbuster movies from director Christopher Nolan and his screenwriting partners that brilliantly utilize some of the most complex structures in movie history.

"Story Maps: The Films of Christopher Nolan" is the most detailed analysis of this brilliant director’s storytelling techniques ever written. For writers of screenplays, comic books, novels, graphic novels and video games, this book from professional Story Analysts Daniel Calvisi and William Robert Rich breaks down each film beat for beat using the easy-to-follow method first introduced in the best-seller "Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay."

Discover the common themes and techniques that bind the films of the blockbuster THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY.Navigate the mind-bending dream world of INCEPTION.Decipher the meticulously crafted 'film-as-illusion' that is THE PRESTIGE.Unravel MEMENTO‘s famous ‘backwards’ narrative.

Christopher Nolan and his frequent writing partners David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan are known for complicated narratives that seem to BREAK ALL OF THE RULES of screenwriting structure and demand multiple viewings and intense analysis to understand. But when you see their movies broken down into the PRACTICAL and ACCESSIBLE template known as the STORY MAP, the classic techniques and advanced writing methods of these densely-plotted masterpieces reveal themselves.

If you're a writer or just a dedicated movie fan, this is a fantastic primer in how feature films are broken down and structured to deliver maximum emotional intensity to worldwide audiences!

A tragicomic novel about nostalgia, addiction, and 1970s action figures. The Toy Collector is a wickedly funny portrait of a young man who sells stolen pharmaceuticals to finance his growing addiction to memorabilia. An orderly at a Times Square hospital, James Gunn (also the protagonist's name) buys his toys at exorbitant prices, searching the familiar tacky plastic for his childhood dreams in a perverse effort to avoid adulthood. As the story switches from the make-believe world he creates with his childhood friends-populated by Scrunch-Em, Grow-Em Dinosaurs and toy robots-to the grown-up pleasures of sex, drugs and alcohol, James falls in and out of love, and stumbles through New York City in search of dubious redemption. At once raucous, sentimental, and hilarious, The Toy Collector is a novel about the lasting strength of childhood, the responsibilities of adulthood, and the repercussions of a generation nursed on TV shows and action figures.

The same minds behind the summer’s breakout hit, Mad Max: Fury Road-writer-director George Miller, cowriter Nico Lathouris and cowriter-storyboard artist Mark Sexton-present this series of prequel tales set within the world of the blockbuster film!

In the brutal and lawless Wasteland, witness the rise of the veteran hero turned tyrannical warlord known as Immortan Joe, along with the story of one of his War Boys, the indomitable Nux. Then follow the journey of Furiosa, Joe’s most feared Imperator, and experience the cycle of violence and tragedy as the Road Warrior Max Rockatansky fights to rebuild his Interceptor-the vehicle that ensures his freedom!

Finally, exclusive to this collection, comes the tale of the mighty War Rig and the lives it claimed throughout its wild road battles!

Pixar Animation Studios, the innovators behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille, created its latest genre-defying film with an intriguing and unorthodox question in mind: What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot? WALLE (Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class) is this last, soulful robot. When his lonely work is interrupted by the arrival of the sleek probe-droid EVE, a rollicking adventure across the galaxy ensues.

The Art of WALLE features the myriad pieces of concept art on which this fantastic, futuristic film was built, including storyboards, full-color pastels, digital and pencil sketches, character studies, color scripts, and more. Astute text-featuring quotes from the director, artists, animators, and production team-unearths the filmmakers' historical inspirations and recounts the creative process in intimate detail. This richly illustrated portal into the artistic spirit of Pixar reveals a studio confidently pushing the limits of animation.

The troublemaking students of Ms. Jenkins' class arrive at school one day to discover a substitute creacher has come to put a stop to their monkey business! He regales them with mind-boggling stories about his former students who didn't follow the rules: Keith the glue-eater, Zach the daydreamer, and Hank the prankster, to name a few. But even this multi-tentacled, yellow-spotted, one-eyed monster's cautionary tales about the consequences of mischief-making can't seem to change the students' wicked ways until he reveals the spookiest and most surprising story of all: his own.

Chris Gall's vibrant artwork leaps off the page with a dynamic comic book aesthetic that will grab both parents and monster-loving kids!

Strange things have been happening in New York City. Mysterious ectoplasm has been oozing down walls, haunted figures are bursting out of locked rooms, and—rumor has it—a supernatural superfan wreaked havoc at a recent rock concert! Luckily there’s a group that’s ready to take the lead and rid the city of its ghostly infestation—the Ghostbusters! Grab your proton packs and join the Ghostbusters in this hilarious, action-packed retelling of the all-new movie that features an eight-page, full-color, glossy insert with images from the film!

Captain Paperfox and his crew receive a distress signal from the Corva Mining Company Ship; "The Magpie."However, upon investigating "The Magpie" they find that the ship has been overrun with ferocious, bloodthirsty Vampire Pandas! Trapped - will they be able to escape back to their ship before the pandas find them?

Ryan Richmond was as ordinary as any child growing up in America in the late sixties. His dreams, however, were far from average and could be described as nothing less than “out of this world.” From an early age, Ryan was fascinated by the solar system and its still undiscovered secrets.

Growing up in a middle class neighborhood of Henderson, Nevada his aspirations of space exploration seemed unattainable. Nonetheless, Ryan proved to be far from ordinary, and by the time he left high school he was about to sell his first business for $100,000 and invest the money. A short time later he was the proud new owner of his first space company, a business started in a derelict old building down the road from his childhood home.

Being the resourceful young man he was, Ryan took advantage of the downsizing European and Russian space programs by hiring some of their leading space experts to work in his new venture program, Astermine Co.

Fueled by up and coming investments into Qualcomm and Google, Ryan’s business-savvy grew and Astermine branched out to California where he recruited some of the country’s top aerospace engineers, astrophysicists and scientists whom had been tossed to the wayside by NASA’s downsizing shuttle program.

With his own program now well established, Ryan and his ragtag group of experts have begun to develop the spacecraft of the future. There’s only one problem standing in their way: The U.S. government has renewed its interest in space travel, and they want Astermine!

Rave reviews on Amazon for the entire series

If you loved the movies "Gravity" and "The Martian" you will love this series.

In the film Serenity, outlaw Malcolm Reynolds and his crew revealed to the entire 'verse the crimes against humanity undertaken by the sinister government--the Alliance. Here, in the official follow-up to the film, the crew has been in hiding since becoming everyone's most wanted, and now they are forced to come out. River uncovers more secrets, leading these former Browncoats on a dangerous mission against the Alliance that, with hope, will bring them together again . . .

In this illuminating script book, Charlie Kaufman, the Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, shares the logistical challenges of writing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in a fascinating interview.

Kaufman also provides commentary on stills from the movie, revealing remarkable details about the editing process, set construction, and shooting techniques that were used to tell this unconventional story.

In the film, Joel ( Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), to have Clementine removed from his own memory. But as Joel's memories progressively disappear, he begins to rediscover their earlier passion. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to escape the procedure.As Dr. Mierzwiak and his crew chase him through the maze of his memories, it's clear that Joel just can't get her out of his head.The movie stars Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst,Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, and Mark Ruffalo.

In the acclaimed Newmarket Shooting Script® format, the book includes an introduction by director Michel Gondry (Human Nature), a facsimile of the script, a Q&A with Kaufman, a selection of black-and-white movie stills with commentary, and the complete cast and crew credits.

Includes “Story of Your Life” the basis for the major motion picture Arrival, starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, and directed by Denis Villeneuve.

“Shining, haunting, mind-blowing tales . . . Ted Chiang is so exhilarating, so original, so stylish he just leaves you speechless.” —Junot Díaz

Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic.

Go "behind the sails" on an intergalactic treasure hunt in this thrilling new animated space adventure by Walt Disney Pictures. A futuristic twist on one of the greatest adventure stories ever told, Treasure Planet follows Jim Hawkins's fantastic journey across a parallel universe aboard a glittering space galleon. Bug great dangers lie ahead when Jim discovers that his trusted mentor, the cyborg cook John Silver, is actually a scheming pirate with mutiny on his mind. Legends of pirate treasure and pirate terror, the lore of literary pirates, and a look at the loot of a thousand worlds are all featured in this richly illustrated volume that will be treasured by buccaneers of all ages. Discover the film's evolution and the development of its characters, weaponry, and technology, as well as exploring the interesting histories of actual pirates who sailed the seven seas. Part techno-log, part field guide, this book is brimming with diagrams, gadgets, and gizmos, fun facts, and fascinating anecdotes.

Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar system. Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie’s jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science. Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself. In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne’s scientific insights?many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar?describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible.

JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg join forces in this extraordinary tale of youth, mystery, and adventure. Super 8 tells the story of six friends who witness a train wreck while making a Super 8 movie, only to learn that something unimaginable escaped during the crash. They soon discover that the only thing more mysterious than what it is, is what it wants. Experience the film that critics rave is, "filled with unstoppable imagination and visual effects to spare. It will put a spell on you." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller envisions a nightmare scenario: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan—where it became a runaway best seller—Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world.